


Ate My Brain

by htebazytook



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Ex Sex, M/M, NYC - Freeform, Smut, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-28
Updated: 2011-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 11:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htebazytook/pseuds/htebazytook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By now they've gotten used to it.  (Thanks again to W. Somerset Maugham for not suing.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ate My Brain

**Title:** Ate My Brain  
 **Author:** [](http://htebazytook.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://htebazytook.livejournal.com/)**htebazytook**  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Disclaimer:** <\--  
 **Pairing:** Zach/Chris  
 **Author's Notes:** By now they've gotten used to it. (Thanks again to W. Somerset Maugham for not suing.)

 

Chris lumbers off the plane on sea legs or air legs or sheer caffeine deprivation. Well, good gourmet and overpriced caffeine deprivation, anyway. And yet this doesn't prevent him from making a trip to the Mc'Café' before the point of no return baggage claim.

When Chris finally finds the sidewalk his hands are already cold from his iced whatever and he's instantly in a bad mood toward New York. All the pointless layovers along the way aren't helping with his attitude — for example, his probably unnecessary layover here on his way to the next press thing because it's more economical to stay at Zach's instead of a hotel? Somehow that used to sound more viable.

> Here

The response doesn't come till halfway to the next terminal.

> **you just landed?**

> No I'm outside where are you

Another annoying interval that Chris waits out, sighing and standing still in the cold.

> **gold chevy right before american airlines.**

> By the recycling stuff by United

> ? 

Chris puts his bag down 'cause it's heavy with Vitamin Water, shakes out his wrist and thinks about saving his strength in case he jerks Zach off later.

> **no by jet blue.**

Chris mutters a growl to his shoes, probably freaks out some innocent passersby and stalks back the way he'd come, types out a bitchy text but cancels it like a sensible person and just greets Zach's smile through the windshield with a slammed door and a:

"So what you meant by _before_ American Airlines was in fact actually _after_ American Airlines, and now I can't feel my face because it's fucking eighty million degrees below zero here."

Zach just sighs and pulls out of his illegal parking spot, Focusing on the fickle traffic surrounding them while Chris focuses on situating his phone and gloves and heavy-as-fuck bag. "You're buckled, right?"

He can't tame his bitchiness: "Ss, yeah, thanks for making sure." Makes a frustrated noise after a minute and adjusts the air.

Zach echoes the sentiment with silence, puts on his turn signal and says, "Its not like I haven't been sitting here warming the car up for an hour, so I'm sorry that it's apparently not warm enough."

"Whatever. It's fine."

Zach raises an eyebrow and Chris fights the impulse for annoyance, alters his tone to something sincere-sounding: "No, it's fine, I'm sorry. I just had a shitty flight. Too many fucking people. Thanks for picking me up and everything . . ."

"Yeah, well," Zach says, sounds less bitchy now, "I know how much you hate waiting in the cold." And Chris does feel good that Zach knows that.

Several blocks of icy inconvenience later and they do finally end up at Zach's place, crappy and temporary but nice because of scents and memories, no matter that he'd turned the heat down before leaving. Zach goes to fiddle with it while Chris peels his coat off.

Chris starts to feel genuinely warmed up to Zach again when met with the surroundings. Gets this sly little anticipatory rush, sneaks up behind him to slide still-cold hands under Zach's practical puffy coat and make him jump and feel warmth seeping in through his fingers and the way Zach leans back against Chris's groin and, oh right, that's why they put up with each other, isn't it? mm . . .

Zach turns his head for a kiss, lengthens it with a weirdly warm hand on the back of Chris's neck and tells him, "Missed you."

Chris is transported by the warmth of him, the way his hair smells and bristles and makes him remember the first time he ran his hands through it, all that gorgeous sexual tension for hours afterward until Zach finally dragged him into the marble bathroom at an after party for a mind-boggling blowjob.

The kiss loses stability quick and they shed body-warm clothes even quicker on their way to Zach's bed, too urgent and too familiar and too few and far between to wait.

*

Chris doesn't wake up alone, wakes up scrunched between a bony body and a hard place — the cold wall that Zach decided to put his tiny twin bed against.

Chris tries to get back to that carefree just-waking-up place but Zach has already infiltrated his senses, sharp shoulder and cold toes and the familiar smell of his deodorant that Chris is beginning to associate with annoyance instead of arousal. All he wants to do is erase it with superstrong coffee and a few mindless hours of The Today Show.

"Hey," Chris says, scratchy with sleep. Nudges him but Zach only twitches and squishes Chris even more into the wall. " _Hey_ ," and he gives him a good shove this time, really doesn't feel like crawling over him.

Zach makes a disgruntled sound before barely accommodating him. Chris just clambers through Zach's limbs and escapes into the kitchen.

He's staring at his thrice-checked e-mail with cold coffee for company when Zach finally emerges, doesn't say anything on his way to the fridge, or after joining Chris on the couch. Or after finishing his arrogantly healthy breakfast _thing_. Chris is still scrolling up and down his Gmail account, half listening to Al Roker and hoping Zach doesn't say something all fake and happy and piss him off.

"So," Chris says leadingly, gets nothing and it gets a bit annoyed. "What's new?"

"Eh," Zach says, shifting against the arm of the couch and leaning away from him even more. "I've gotten into a pretty boring routine by now." He shrugs. "I dunno . . ."

Chris sighs and looks at the TV without processing anything. There's this impulse to blurt out whatever fleeting notion crosses his brain – something inadvisable like, _When did you stop even pretending to wanna hear me talk?_

Twelve hours later and Chris has used up the remainder of his sanity with airport lines, gross, snoring people, and absolutely zero interest in his book at the terminal, so then that ends up being forced reading like crap from college and _then_ you can never enjoy Of Human Bondage to its fullest ever again, so, great.

One gracious gulp of cool California air seems to reset his mind a little, and Chris starts to relish that feeling of Being In A Relationship again on the way to the set, starts to recall all that accumulated afterglow and feel a little smug. Thinks about Zach holding him down the night before and his gasp at Chris's tongue in his ear and feels a little smugly turned on.

But on his way home Chris's mind lingers on Zach not calling or texting or whatever all day, so he has to kick himself for being such a girl. Gets home and sits, finally, far from grumpy travelers and flight delays on hard plastic seats. He watches crap on TV for hours, and there's not any particular reason why he checks his phone every commercial break until its battery dies.

*

Chris likes his castmates. Really, he does. It's just that he's got Zach to think of and remember stories for — it's just that if he starts going too far beyond small talk with his new coworkers he might have fun with them and then have to weigh it against the amount of fun he has with Zach and then wonder what he's doing wrong to be so uninteresting or whether they ever had fun in the past, anyway . . .

So yeah, it's just not worth making temporary friends when he has Zach comfortably for forever.

And while he walks the carpet at the premiere and gets blinded by flashbulbs all he can think about is how much fun it had been with Zach by his side and he gets this little flash of confidence in what it is they have, 'cause it's utterly unique.

None of this helps him feel any less lonely, though, so he smiles a little extra.

*

Some days, Chris wakes up and feels nothing for Zach at all, and he can taste freedom, but after a while the pain settles in his heart and he knows he's far from cured of him.

He takes a long shower while his coffee brews and lets his mind wander. Looks at the slicked down hair on his arm and thinks about summers spent swimming back before their schedules got so demanding, thinks about Zach emerging from fake blue pool water and jerking his head to flip his bangs out of his face, looking at Chris with irrepressible smiles and dumb hair and his constantly appetizing body. So many afternoons spent licking chlorine from Zach's skin and lazing around his the house with the dog, blissed out and sore from sex, and then Zach always wheedling for more, into him and acting happy, always doing cute things like fixing Chris's hair and following up with hot things like fucking him against a wall 'cause the bed's two feet too far away.

Chris usually saves his pent up lust for fuel against getting angry with Zach but today's going to have to be an exception. He sighs and lets his soapy hand fall to his growing erection, offers up an involuntary whimper at a particular memory of Zach — wet from the hotel hot tub and not at all subtle about excusing them from the company of their castmates, with Karl's audible snickering in the background as they made their way to the elevators, handsy and disgustingly PDA. Zach had pulled Chris close by the flimsy material of his swim trunks, mouthed at his neck/jaw/bottom lip and wasted no time in feeling him up. Chris's fear of discovery had made him squirm which only made Zach turn up the heat, pressing his whole dampened body against Chris and murmuring dirty promises into his ear between swipes of his tongue. Once they'd made it out of the elevator they could barely make it through the door to Zach's room before Zach had Chris's cock in his mouth.

In the present, Chris is jerking himself desperately in the cooling shower and all it takes is the memory of Zach's eyes fixed obsessively on him for Chris to come.

*

Chris's more optimistic, albeit sex-feuled outlook has been thoroughly demolished by the next weekend, stuck in an airport for the upteenth time and resenting his book and his boyfriend equally by now. It's amid this charming humor that Zack finally texts:

> **what time?**

> Could you try to be a little more vague? I'm not confused enough

> **omg i was just asking when you'll get here jeez.**

> Well maybe if you bothered to ask or just generally make an effort to communicate with me any time before the day of our scheduled booty call you would know that I had to switch flights and have furthermore had the worst fucking day ever trying to travel thousands of miles just to see you

> **um yeah i'm sorry for having work and a life. why don't you just calm the fuck down before you land because i really don't feel like talking to you when you're like this.**

> I'm sorry "like this"? Like I had a shitty day and my so-called boyfriend doesn't give a shit and instead gets pissed at me? Meanwhile I actually WANT to see him and actually MAKE the time and oh yeah remember how I'm the only one that ever comes to see you instead of the actual sensible method of you just flying HOME where I am in the first place? 

> **that last one doesn't even make sense as a question.**

> Omg fuck you you'd better be FUCKING penitent when I get there

Chris cools off a little during the flight, takes a quiz on WebMD that suggests both anger management and a possible cancer diagnosis.

He has a dark moment where he asks himself why Zach doesn't love him back or care or what did Chris ever do to him and Chris deserves it, is retarded, not good enough, is a stupid fucking failure . . . shakes it off and indulges in an angry nap until landing wakes him up.

Chris is still poised for anger underneath his calm exterior, but as soon as he finds Zach's face in the crowd at baggage claim, looking sweet and beautiful and magnetic but not at all apologetic, he knows deep down that he honestly doesn't care if Zach _doesn't_ care — he loves him. He'd rather have uncertainty with him than happiness with another.

*

They spend dinner at a convenient restaurant and talk almost exclusively about mutual friends because it's hard to argue over peoples' general characteristics and safely neutral to recount the facts of their lives.

It occurs to Chris that they only really have other people in common.

And when they're on Zach's couch later and Chris leans in to kiss him he feels his lips but nothing else, and he doesn't even mind it when Zach mutters something about how late it's getting and they go to sleep without comment.

*

The next morning Chris is operating under the mindset that he's at home alone, without Zach to look forward to or anything of interest beyond his coffee. Doesn't even bother saying good morning and tunes out Zach's attempts at conversation.

Zach takes a shower and get dressed while Chris absorbs the news sleepily. There's an exceptionally big gap between Zach's bedroom door shutting and his reappearance but Chris just doesn't think about it.

Chris can feel Zach's eyes laid heavy on him, looks up with his unkempt hair and his pajamas at freshly shaven, mindfully dressed Zach — Chris's disinterest shatters and warm, just-between-them brand affection takes over. He's gonna stand up and hug him and see him cheerfully off to work like a doting housewife, than send suggestive texts all day and give him a world-class blowjob the second he walks back through the door.

Chris is unable or unwilling to process the way Zach is looking at him, his face twisted into something completely unrecognizable, which is impossible because Chris knows every aspect of him. He's looking at Chris like it's the most upsetting, offensive sight he's ever seen.

"This," Zach says, weirdly normal-voiced. "This is over."

Chris stares for a long time, still baffled by the look on his face. Stares and stares but can't locate Zach anywhere at all. He says dumbly, "Do you have your phone and stuff? Keys?"

Zach frowns within that foreign expression. "Yeah, I'll. I'll just go."

So that's what happens.

*

At first Chris doesn't feel anything, not on the way home and not when he reads his book before bed. Doesn't feel anything until he opens up his cupboard the next morning and sees the Star Trek mug Zach had given him years ago — he'd wanted Zach so much before they started dating and his friends had assured him that the random present meant Zach was crushing just as hard. Chris had been so fucking giddy at the thought, he'd never even considered that Zach might feel the same way . . .

And that's when he feels it, and he feels little else for days — a raging black hole on the edge of his thoughts, sucking whatever's around away, hovering there in his footsteps and the stairs to his apartment and his own face in the bathroom mirror.

Intellectually, Chris recognizes that his relationship with Zach had been like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood, absorbing his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else. But that was exactly the problem.

*

The next time Chris goes to New York it really is work-related, and he gets in late because he doesn't have to make time for anyone but himself.

The weather sucks, of course, and the traffic is thickening, so Chris walks in the obnoxious snow through unfamiliar streets, staring stubbornly at the cold ground making contact with his feet and reconsidering his position on Uggs.

It takes blocks and blocks for him to finally look up into the sparkling, barely-there snow and finally see it — dazzling, exactly like glitter.

All at once Chris feels like he's regained himself.

*

Chris hops on the subway and texts Zach neutrally, gets a neutral response and soon they'll be meeting for neutral coffee like friends who have fallen out of touch are wont to. Chris has mostly convinced himself that that's close enough to their situation. Anyway he knows he's ready to face him, knows that by now he's strong enough to ignore any residual lust or how much he'd wanted to be in love. It's normal, commonplace, and people do it successfully every single day.

Chris steps out onto the platform feeling free and confident, lets the people in a hurry swarm past him and walks alone down the dingy corridor and—

"Chris?"

Zach.

He's there and breathing, there too soon and Chris isn't prepared. He's there and pure, irrational hate knocks the wind out of Chris.

Zach. Chris hasn't looked him in the eye for eternities.

And Zach's just standing there looking like an idiot with Chris hating him completely when there's a shift to the world — he's closer and Chris loves his shoulders and his scent and they way they fit together and they're kissing. Chris can't understand how that boiling rage in the pit of his stomach boils over into lust, sympathy, regret, now please simple easy wanting . . .

Zach's hands are hungry for him, feeling Chris's chest and pulling him in by the hips and flicking a nipple through worn cotton in that particular way. Chris melts even more, and even though all he could feel after getting dumped was sharp freedom, all he can feel with every ill-advised step they take is overwhelmingly warm, fucking debilitating relief.

Zach seems to sense Chris's mind is elsewhere, gets him by the front of his shirt and the back of his neck for a deeper, more direct kiss. They _mm_ at the same time and Chris gets hot and cold and hard. He's pretty sure they're gonna fuck on the goddamn subway platform, and even though that's kind of disgusting the spontaneity is still a turn on. Zach yanks him down a dirty alcove with a sputtering light and kisses him into an ice cold wall.

Zach's hand is down his pants before Chris can fully process the situation — his head falls back and Zach takes the opportunity to bite at Chris's neck, pull his scarf off and replaces it with his mouth. Chris makes an embarrassing noise and arcs into his kisses and the hand on his cock and finds Zach's other palm pressing tight over Chris's mouth, catches his eye, kisses him searchingly.

Zach's hand disappears and Chris moans regret but he's just slicking it with saliva before jerking Chris harder, thumb dipping to rub his balls teasingly and Chris doesn't even notice the earthquake of a passing train until Zach's knocked off balance.

It's Chris's chance and he takes it — spins Zach and gets him with his face smashed sideways to the cracked tile wall, samples the salty sweat at the back of his neck with his tongue and grinds into him until Zach just grabs Chris's hand and puts it to work on his cock.

Zach squirms back against him and his gasps seem to indicate that Chris is doing something right — Chris spreads precome with his thumb and kisses Zach's neck the same way he's stoking with his fingers, bites the shell of Zach's ear while he's at it and Zach hisses _Christ_ or maybe it was _Chris_ but anyway Chris couldn't care less, breathless with how much Zach wants this, with how much _he_ wants it . . .

Zach's hand flies back suddenly, grips Chris's coat tight and Chris knows he's close — it's in the way he grinds into Chris's hand so hopelessly, battling himself for restraint and failing miserably and in such a way that it's endearing and sexy and tediously familiar.

Zach whispers _Yesyesyes_ , and comes warm and gorgeously. Barely recovers before he's on his knees with Chris's cock nudging his winter-chapped, lust-red lips and Chris knows he won't last long either.

Chris's leg muscles tense and that taste of impending orgasm is so good but half of it feels deliciously wrong — with his heart thumping he realizes nothing has changed and as soon as this is over they'll still be over and now Chris doesn't know if he _can_ get over this, and somehow this is all translating into the exciting slip of Zach's tongue on the underside of his cock and the gracious sucks he takes on the upstroke, big comforting not-in-love-with-him hands securing him by the hips when Chris finally spills into Zach's mouth.

The floor's too dirty to collapse to, no matter what had just transpired, so they collapse into each other instead.

*


End file.
